Apple can actually make an incredible gpu

[Trik'Stari]

So somewhere near the performance of a ps3 gpu? 

LOL #rekt

[Deletive]

nVidia is a gpu company, they are known to create incredible gpu, but to see that Apple is able to match the peak performance of Tegra k1, and outsustain the performance of K1 over time (tegra k1 throttles over time, A8/A8x doesn't) show just how advanced Apple really is.

Tegra is still 28nm, Apple has the newer node. 

[Tocsin_786]

Hopefully this shows how pathetic consoles are.

yea. a tablet getting as much gpu horsepower as a ps3. something the ps vita did 2 years ago. not to mention how old the ps3 really is. 

[Dietrichw]

wasn't the chips manufactured by Samsung or something, last i heard their chips were from them & they just re-brand it with its rights reserved.

I think they changed manufactures with the change in node. Apple has designed the chips themselves since the A4 on the CPU side and Samsung only owned the factory that they were made in. 

[JAKEBAB]

It's a technological marvel.

And they're even working on a Battlefield 4 port from what I know.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not also they showed bf3 running on an ipad a couple years ago so it doesnt necessarily mean it will come public.

Op obv they can do something decent with all there billions of dollars i think metal would be helping too also this isnt all that amazing look at tegra k1.

[Mew]

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not also they showed bf3 running on an ipad a couple years ago so it doesnt necessarily mean it will come public.

Op obv they can do something decent with all there billions of dollars i think metal would be helping too also this isnt all that amazing look at tegra k1.

 

Actually, Tegra K1 is less impressive than the A8x simply for the fact that K1 is unable to maintain consistent performance for extended periods of time. Look at the Performance Degradation section here http://www.anandtech.com/show/8666/the-apple-ipad-air-2-review/5

 

As one can see, the iPad Air 2 is one of the best performers on this test, considering its frame rate and runtime. While NVIDIA's GK20A GPU in Tegra K1 can get close to the GX6650 for short periods of time, over a long workload it's pretty clear that the GX6650 on 20nm has better sustained performance and significantly superior efficiency as it doesn't throttle until the 200th iteration of the test. It's important to note that the iPad Air 2 is running at a higher native resolution here, so relative to SHIELD Tablet a scaling factor needs to be estimated in order to get an idea for performance at the same resolution. During this test I saw that the skin temperatures never exceeded 45C, so this isn't the result of Apple choosing to run the device hotter than most.

[TroubleKlef]

Hasn't Apple designed leading SoCs since like the iPhone 4 days?

 

I remember looking at benchmarks and seeing the iPhone at the top of the list everytime.

[qwertywarrior]

 edit

odd

[JAKEBAB]

Actually, Tegra K1 is less impressive than the A8x simply for the fact that K1 is unable to maintain consistent performance for extended periods of time. Look at the Performance Degradation section here http://www.anandtech.com/show/8666/the-apple-ipad-air-2-review/5

3fps...

[MrSuperb]

wasn't the chips manufactured by Samsung or something, last i heard their chips were from them & they just re-brand it with its rights reserved.

Although Apple did have their own factories (don't know if any of them are still up and running), they nowadays outsource pretty much any actual manufacturing.

[Valentyn]

Macs come with gaming grade GPU's ? I thought they only came with quadros or firepros. 

 

It's just the Mac Pro that comes with Workstation cards. Even then though they're more than capable of gaming.

 

The Lowest FirePro the D300  games as well as a 7870, while the D700 hangs around the 280X. Boot into windows and you also have AMD Crossfire support on the FirePros. They're odd duck cards from AMD as they have full FirePro features and support, but can ran Catalyst drivers with Crossfire without any issue as well while retaining FirePro features, including 10-bit colour and ECC.

 

The iMacs new m295X GPU also does very well at 2560x1440 gaming in OS X, and spanks the previous GTX 780m at nearly everything.

 

Gaming Benchmarks 2560x1440 - 5K tests

http://barefeats.com/imac5k2.html

 

GTX 780m vs m295x

http://barefeats.com/imac5k.html

[kamaltmo]

Aren't all the GPU's in apple A series SoC designed by PowerVR like they have always been, as far as I am aware the GPU in the A8X is a PowerVR Series 6XT GXA6850, So apple isn't technically making or designing this amazing chip. There just paying TSMC to produce PowerVR's design and add it to there SoC

[Jcowley]

Aren't all the GPU's in apple A series SoC designed by PowerVR like they have always been, as far as I am aware the GPU in the A8X is a PowerVR Series 6XT GXA6850, So apple isn't technically making or designing this amazing chip. There just paying TSMC to produce PowerVR's design and add it to there SoC

 

This is correct - Imagination Technologies design the GPU core for the iPad Air 2. Apple just add it to a SoC and make sure it works.

[lttiscancer]

Wow something that isn't a total gimmick from Apple?

except apple is still going head to head and even beating 8 core qualcom processors, has had the best mobile phone gpu for years and was the first innovator for pixel density that we see today right? 

 

Apple is definitely nothing but gimmicks. God you stupid cunts just eat up the angsty hipster tech geek thing don't you?

[bogus]

So is NVIDIA finally filling a lawsuit for Apple?

I had to say it.

[MoDtEc]

Hopefully this shows how pathetic consoles are.

 

needs still to be shown?    *running for cover hoping no console-friendly guy starts the old war in this thread

 

nevermind

ill wait for the tegra k1 replacement on new node before i think about saying something final about this

but so far its a good thing they did that

[harrynowl]

Imagination tech can actually make an incredible GPU. Pretty sure the iPad air is a 8 core (cluster) PowerVR rogue GPU, so not something apple have made.

 

I think the K1 will come with a higher clock though, apple are generally somewhat conservative on gpu (and cpu, however cyclone ipc is great) clock speeds, so K1 may be roughly equal to the GX6850 (k1 is a full kepler SMX).

[harrynowl]

wasn't the chips manufactured by Samsung or something, last i heard their chips were from them & they just re-brand it with its rights reserved.

They used to be, however now they use TSMC, licence an ARMv8 (A57) design and use an Imagination Tech PowerVR graphics chip (same as some silvermont atoms).

[LAwLz]

Wait... A8X is a triple-core?

 

Wonder if we'll eventually be able to unlock a fourth core like the Athlon/Phenom X3's

Yep it's a 3 core CPU. There is physically no 4th core on the chip so don't get your hopes up for some Athlon/Phenom style unlocking though.

 

 

Hasn't Apple designed leading SoCs since like the iPhone 4 days?

 

I remember looking at benchmarks and seeing the iPhone at the top of the list everytime.

They have usually lead GPU performance and trailed behind in CPU performance. The reason why you usually see iProducts leading CPU benchmarks are because the benchmarks are flawed (for example browser based).

I mean, you wouldn't test the 8350 vs the 4770k by running SunSpider in Firefox for the AMD, and SunSpider in Chrome for the Intel CPU, right?

Since Cyclone (a7) they have been kicking ass in terms of IPC and core for core performance though.

 

 

Aren't all the GPU's in apple A series SoC designed by PowerVR like they have always been, as far as I am aware the GPU in the A8X is a PowerVR Series 6XT GXA6850, So apple isn't technically making or designing this amazing chip. There just paying TSMC to produce PowerVR's design and add it to there SoC

The GXA6850 is not an official PowerVR part. They might have paid Imagination to design it, or maybe Apple themselves (they have hired GPU designers) designed this part together with Imagination.

According to Anandtech it seems to be two PowerVR GX6450 glued together.

 

 

Very interesting news. I guess you can afford to do some crazy things when you got 160 billion dollars in your cash reserve.

[cesrai]

So will it beat the Nexus 9 ?? I will try to look.

[LukeTim]

Aren't all the GPU's in apple A series SoC designed by PowerVR like they have always been, as far as I am aware the GPU in the A8X is a PowerVR Series 6XT GXA6850, So apple isn't technically making or designing this amazing chip. There just paying TSMC to produce PowerVR's design and add it to there SoC

 

This is correct - Imagination Technologies design the GPU core for the iPad Air 2. Apple just add it to a SoC and make sure it works.

 

According to Anandtech this isn't exactly true in this case...

From what they can tell, Apple have bolted two GX6450s (the GPU in the iPhone 6's A8) together in a SLI/Crossfire type scenario... making for 256FP units... compared to Tegra's 192. That's why they are calling it the GXA6850, because it's not exactly an official IMG design.

http://anandtech.com/show/8716/apple-a8xs-gpu-gxa6850-even-better-than-i-thought 

[Jcowley]

According to Anandtech this isn't exactly true in this case...

From what they can tell, Apple have bolted two GX6450s (the GPU in the iPhone 6's A8) together in a SLI/Crossfire type scenario... making for 256FP units... compared to Tegra's 192. That's why they are calling it the GXA6850, because it's not exactly an official IMG design.

http://anandtech.com/show/8716/apple-a8xs-gpu-gxa6850-even-better-than-i-thought 

 

Trust me - IMG designed it.

[LukeTim]

Trust me - IMG designed it.

 

That's what I am saying, and that's what Anandtech was saying. IMG designed the individual GX6450s and Apple stuck them together. It's kinda half and half...

It's like if some board OEM (like EVGA or Gigabyte) was to take two GTX 980 chips and stick them together on the same card in SLI today... it's not officially Nvidia's doing, even though Nvidia designed the individual GTX 980s.

[holytoledo]

I don't think he's contesting IMG designing it. Just saying Apple requested an SLI/Crossfire variant and it's labeled as theirs.

 

That's what I got from his post anyway.

 

I swear, reading comprehension isn't even a thing on forums some times.

 

Would be funny if I was wrong. Shame. D:

[Jcowley]

That's what I am saying, and that's what Anandtech was saying. IMG designed the individual GX6450s and Apple stuck them together. It's kinda half and half...

It's like if some board OEM (like EVGA or Gigabyte) was to take two GTX 980 chips and stick them together on the same card in SLI today... it's not officially Nvidia's doing, even though Nvidia designed the individual GTX 980s.

 

 

I don't think he's contesting IMG designing it. Just saying Apple requested an SLI/Crossfire variant and it's labeled as theirs.

 

That's what I got from his post anyway.

 

I swear, reading comprehension isn't even a thing on forums some times.

 

Would be funny if I was wrong. Shame. D:

 

I think you both misunderstood me.

 

IMG did the work of designing the cores AND putting them together, Apple just put them in a SoC.

 

Apple hold a large stake in IMG so they get specially designs solutions that nobody else gets access to, at least not for any reasonable length of time.